I found this link through Neil Gaiman's blog, and I'm so glad I did. I was a tarot reader and astrologer for seven years, and have since come to terms with the fact that I'm just a very very good cold reader. Reading this makes me feel less bad about the people I did readings for - I just wish I could go back and tell them the truth...

And yay - once more I am suffering from anxiety and depression, so it's not surprising that...

Being a cold reader may well have been helpful to the people you did readings for.It's not so dissimilar to what psychiatrists do - being there for people while they focus on what's bothering them and work towards their own solutions.

So long as you avoided giving specific advice you're unlikely to have harmed anyone by doing readings for them.

So long as you avoided giving specific advice you're unlikely to have harmed anyone by doing readings for them.

I can't say I avoided giving advice - as anyone who knows me will testify, I am more or less congenitally incapable of avoiding giving advice. However, as far as I can remember, the advice I gave was based on what the people had confirmed about their situations to me and certainly everything I can recall saying stands up to examination in hindsight.

The biggest way in which I might have caused harm is by helping people to believe in fortune tellers or psychics, but there's not a lot I can do about that now :-(